And the reason for the snub? Because CNET's News.com had the effrontery to use Google CEO Eric Schmidt to illustrate the threat Google can pose to personal privacy.

An excerpt:

In her story, (writer Eleanor) Mills included a link to Schmidt's home address, his net worth of $1.5 billion and noted that he has attended the Burning Man art festival and is an amateur pilot. Mills said she spent 30 minutes on Google to obtain the information.

"We didn't go out and break into any databases to get this information," (News.com editor-in-chief Jai) Singh said. "This is all publicly available information."

A Google spokesman declined to speak with The Associated Press about the story.

The crux of Mills' story was about the vast amounts of information Google collects that is unavailable to the public. For example, Google software scans user e-mails to learn what kind of advertising might appeal to the user.

Mills wrote in her story that "hackers, zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics standards could abuse that information."